Musings from the Stress Less staff regarding the current state of stress in our lives and what we are or are not doing about it. Contributed by psychologists,exercise physiologists,dietitians,and just plain marketing folks.

Monday, September 26, 2016

More Self-Esteem
for the Terrorists!

Self Esteem
is your personal and emotional evaluation of yourself and can be very positive
or negative. Research has suggested that self-esteem can influence academics, happiness,
criminal behavior and satisfaction in marriage/relationships. Synonyms include
self-regard, self-esteem, self-respect and self-integrity. There are three selves’:
Social Self, Spiritual Self, and Material Self, with the Social Self coming
closest to self-esteem by combining all characteristics recognized by others.

In the early
1970’s, it was posited that low self-esteem was the cause of societal problems.
It is now estimated that terrorists have low self-esteem and join the Jihad to feel
better about themselves with a since of mission and accomplishment (Not
counting the promised virgins waiting for them in heaven!).

Maslow believed
that psychological health requires a person to be loved, accepted and respected
by others. People with high self-esteem have reported a closer correlation to
happiness and seemingly live very positive lives.

So, if low self-esteem
leads men and women to join a terrorist group and gladly take orders to kill
others for martyrdom or there is just an “off balance” individual who takes it
upon themselves to kill other humans, could we discover a way to interrupt this
process in order to allow these soon to be murderers a way out? There are self-reporting
self-esteem tests (Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale, Name Letter Test), but these
probably are not at the top of the list for most folks, much less terrorists (We
include all people who threaten to take someone else’s life as a terrorist,
whether it is one or many lives.)

We believe
that just about everyone thinks of these random acts of violence in our society
and worries that no one is safe anymore, anywhere in the world. So, we have a “top
of mind” fear of random attacks which may be more of a “self-esteem” issue than
religious or philosophical.

Surely our
new “socially connected world” can help us begin to uncover these “malcontents”
that possibly could be stopped or reduced with a program that focuses on their self-esteem
improvement. Sounds idyllic, but it might, just might have an impact.

Sunday, September 4, 2016

The positive news on this annual US Holiday is that we have
2,900,000 more Americans working than 2 years ago and the unemployment rate has
dropped 3.5% points to level out at 4.9% as of August 2016.

However, 36% of US workers still are suffering work stress related
illnesses costing an estimated $40,000,000,000 in lost work day productivity.
Work stress also plays a role in the 53% of workers who say they are “Unhappy”
at their current job which could be supported by the fact that over 50% of
workers have jobs at places that do not offer workplace health programs.

Whatever the reasons, there is a lot of needless stress
being absorbed by US workers. As the economy improves, we do have more people
working, but there are also more ill workers that need good health advice and
support.

Hopefully, the proliferation of inexpensive “on-line” health
promoting websites can absorb some of the need. And smaller companies, that
traditionally do not provide health care insurance, will brainstorm ideas to
help their workers deal with these challenges.

About Me

Since 1995, Stress Less® (www.stress-less.com) has been helping folks around the world to feel better and to get into control of their health, both mentally and physically .
The blog authors are various staff members and consultants who have a few things to say about the trends,products and programs in stress management.